WEBVTT - Women in Tech (w/ Kara Swisher) 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:10.600 Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton. And this season on in fact, 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.080 we're celebrating Women's History Month. I'll be talking with trailblazing 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.720 women at the top of their fields about their personal journeys, 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.079 the progress women have made, and how far we still 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.200 have to go. Today, we're looking at women in the 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.400 tech industry with Kara Swisher, a fierce reporter who has 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.360 been decades chronicling the tech industry, its successes, its failures. 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.080 It's blind spots all well, being clear and blunt about 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.760 what she thinks the responsibilities of the industry and its 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.240 leaders are well here that by numbers alone, the tech 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.840 industry looks like and often is, a man's world. Women 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.680 hold roughly of leadership positions in tech companies, and the 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.200 percentage of women earning computer science degrees is about half 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.400 of what it was. So we're arguably losing ground in 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.680 the fight for an equitable future for women in the 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.920 tech industry. And then they're funding. Last year was a 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.479 record breaking year in terms of interricopital funding, and yet 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.240 women only led startups received just two percent of total 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.840 investment dollars, the lowest share since And when you look 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.720 at women teamed up with men, the percentage jumps to 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.720 fifteen point six percent. Still, that means that more than 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.480 eighty percent of funding went to all male teams, and 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.920 of course numbers don't tell the full story. There's the 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.440 lived experience of being one of the few women in 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:35.440 a male dominated field. The sexism, the man splaining, the exclusion, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.759 the harassment, the feeling and the knowledge that your ideas 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.760 aren't being taken seriously, and the pressure of feeling like 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:49.400 you're representing an entire gender. That said, there are certainly 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:55.440 bright spots female founders, investors, inventors, engineers, and CEOs, including 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.760 Chard Dubai, the CEO of the Match Group, a dating 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.400 and tech company, who will hear from later this season. 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.360 Kara Swisher has probably talked to more tech leaders, over 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:10.320 more time and more places than well anyone. She's been 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.959 described as the most feared and well liked journalist in 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.960 Silicon Valley. Among her many accomplishments, she was a reporter 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.480 for The Washington Post in the Wall Street Journal, and 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.079 she co founded the tech news website Recode. She now 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.000 co hosts the podcast Pivot for Vox Media, and she 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.280 writes an opinion column and hosts the podcast Sway for 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:38.080 the New York Times. So just before I ask any questions, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.399 I just wanted to say thank you, thank you very much. 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.800 And I hope since this is Women's History Month, we 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.840 could start with a little bit of your history. I 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.040 don't think that many people listening may know that you 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.679 didn't first start off as a kind of internet or 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.480 tech reporter. No, well, there wasn't the Internet. I'm old. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.120 There wasn't the Internet. Yeah, so can you talk about 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:58.880 like your first jobs in journalism, You're time at the 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.639 Washington Post, and then how you the decision to take 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.000 this big leap into the future. Well, like I said, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.880 digital wasn't really existing. There were obviously computers had been introduced, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.480 but it wasn't widespread. It wasn't a consumer item really, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.799 it was just starting to become one. I had an 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.079 Apple to see at college, and then there was the 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.760 iMac at some point, but I had I hadn't been 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.919 very technical at all, and I didn't have an office job. 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.040 And where I started work, we didn't have typewriters. We 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.520 had these large computers. I can't remember the system, but 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.480 it was not the most consumer friendly experienced the way 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.720 it is today. Then I worked at the City Paper, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.560 in Washington, which is a free paper. And then I 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.840 got a job in the mail room at the Washington Post. 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:38.760 And I had been a stringer at the Washington Post 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.240 in college to from Georgetown and it got me into 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.720 Columbia Journalism School. So it was sort of this weird 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.080 back and forth with the Post, but eventually I ended 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.280 up the Post as a reporter, and I covered retail 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:52.520 if you lived in which you did live in Washington. 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.839 There was a half family track Auto Dark Drug. They 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.600 owned a beverage thing, and they were a very famous 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.320 retail family, and so I covered them and they were fighting, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.400 and I covered Heckender and Woodies and all these things 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.680 that were just local retail essentially, but at the time 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.240 it was under siege from a very technically literate company 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.440 called Walmart, which was eating everybody's lunch because they used 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.560 technology so definitely in terms of how to stock stores, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.440 and I was super interested in and I was like, oh, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.120 that's interesting. And then I was going out with someone 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.440 who lived in the former Soviet Union and I communicated 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.920 over these Internet things and I was fascinated with it. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:30.880 So that was your first experience with the internet, was 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.800 communicating with ding. Yeah, exactly, and it was very it 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.880 was super hard to do. And then suddenly there was 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.960 a lot of commercial stuff and they were all in 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.800 Washington because one of the hubs of the Internet was 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.800 in Washington. There's May East and May West. If tech 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.360 people are so funny, and so May East was here. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.040 And then suddenly there were all these Internet connection companies. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.000 And when I was at the Post, I did a 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:57.880 fellowship at Duke University and I started downloading books onto 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.240 the system, and I was fascinated with it, and I 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.120 messed it up once. Do you remember the first book 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.160 you downloaded? Calvin and Hobbs Cartoon Collection because I wanted 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.200 to see something visual, And the guy who was running 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.160 the computer center, and I was mad at me because 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.120 I did something wrong. They mucked up to say, you know, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.080 it would take time. Everybody couldn't be on at once. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.920 It was sort of like having one single spicket. And 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.839 I kept saying, I downloaded a book into my computer. 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.479 You believe that? And he's like, yeah, whatever, And I 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.480 was like, no, no, no, this is really a big deal. 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:27.800 And I kept sort of focusing on it, and I 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.680 kept being really interested in At the Washington Post, we 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.240 had a big cell phone, essentially a suitcase phone, but 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.160 it was portable and you could take it with your car. 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.119 I'm the only one who used it. Really, I felt 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.120 like I was. We had these things, these k pros, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.000 these portable computers that we'd put couplers on a on 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.920 a telephone and send stuff. And I was like, this 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:47.560 can't be the end of it. So I started to 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.760 get really more interested in that than the stories I 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.679 was writing, and I kept talking about it, and David 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.039 Ignatious was my editor at the time who's now writes 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.640 about national security and other things. He was like, if 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:00.479 you're so interested, you should write about it. And I 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.920 was like, okay. And I there was a company called 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.240 A O L And that was the first commercial consumer 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.599 oriented company, and it was here in Washington because of 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.600 the location close to May East. And I met Steve 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:13.719 Case when he had a very small amount of people 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.159 and was riveted instantly. I understood that it was a shift, 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.960 a major shift in communications, just like the printing press 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.839 or television or radio. And I had been a student 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:25.560 of that, so it was like, Oh, this is going 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:27.880 to change everything. And I was I think I saw 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.320 it way before other people. And did you expect it 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.320 to change your life too. Yes, I was totally interested 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:35.280 in it. Being at the Washington Post, the big thing 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.800 was to cover politics, and I was like, I'm not 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.440 interested at all in politics, which was at Washington Post. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:41.640 It was like, what do you mean we want to 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.320 give you this pollet. I was a good reporter, and 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:44.640 they wanted me to move there, and I was like, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.760 I couldn't be less interested. So I said, I'll cover this, 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:49.960 and I started covering a o well. And then it 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.440 extended to Amazon, which was a very small company. Jeff 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.520 showed me around this sort of crappy little space and 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.360 and then I met the Yahoo guys and Mark Andres 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.719 and he was very young who created the browser. And 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.560 so I was riveted instantly because I think I understood 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.560 what it would do to media. I was particularly obsessed 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.960 with classified and about delivery and subscriptions and delivery of 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.559 information and so so I had plenty to write about. 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.760 And I just I have not gotten tired of it since. 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:21.040 And Karen, listening to you recite the founders that you met, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.840 they're all men, Yes, indeed they were are Was that 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.960 something you were aware of at the time. It's just 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.920 like man after man generally white man after white man. Oh. Absolutely, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:34.440 something I talked about a lot, and I talked about 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.520 it for years, and I believe it has to do 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.760 with why we're having so many problems too. One time 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.360 someone said, what do you think the real reason it's 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.800 so much problematic around misinformation and safety? And this I said, 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.000 because the people who created the modern internet never felt 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.840 unsafe a day in their lives. They just weren't unsafe people. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.240 And so if you don't feel, if you have a 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.160 lack of feeling about safety, you don't think about building 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.560 it into a system. Right. I don't think it's cruel 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:01.440 or maleve one. It's just it's not the way they think. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.440 You know, I have sons and they don't feel unsafe. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.000 They don't in America. They don't have things coming at 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.240 them all the time. When they built these tools, they 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.240 didn't think people would use them in a malevolent way necessarily, 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:15.400 But once it started happening, they needed to do something 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.480 about it, and Karat they still haven't. No, they haven't, no, no, no, 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.200 they didn't want to get dragged into this. That's what 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.000 you have to understand, is, you know, the the analogy 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.200 I use is a city they've created a city and 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.760 they don't care about the police. They don't want to 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.960 give you firewater, you know, everything, stop signs, everything that 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:38.240 makes a city, okay, like anything police, anything with standards, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.000 and they're like, we don't want to do that, but 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.079 we're taking all the rent via information via data. But 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.240 you know, you're on your own. They don't want to 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.800 take responsibility and and they're also are unqualified to do so, 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.559 and I think they sense that. So I definitely was 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.280 struck by. It was me and a lot of men 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.560 in a room essentially, and then the women that were there. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.600 There are some women technologist absolutely and very critical ones. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.080 There's several a Apple, for example, in other places that 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.240 were there in the early days, but they kind of 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.959 got flushed out. You know. It was an interesting thing 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.560 to see. And often they were in positions of marketing. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.000 And as anyone who covers technos, if you're not in 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.160 the tech part, you ain't no one, right, that's the part. 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.960 You have to be a techie to have power in 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.960 technology companies. That's always true in other companies for sure. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:39.480 We'll be right back, stay with us, okay, I think 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.679 about these different data points whenever this conversation comes up 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.440 or admittedly when I catalyze it, which is that I 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.240 got my first computer from Santa And how old are you? 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.400 I was seven? Okay, Santa Claus brought me a computer. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.840 What was it? I was a commodore. What did you 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:57.800 do on it? What did you actually do on it? 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.839 I played math games, basically interesting because I was nerdy, 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.080 and all right, that felt like a great way to 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.680 be a nerd. And it was all though, that kind 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:13.480 of weird pulsating green color. I remember when I got 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.280 my next computer. I think when I was twelve, and 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.400 there was color. Yeah, probably an apple, right, yep, I 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.480 just like, this is amazing. But in seven more than 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.319 a third of the computer science graduates in our country 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.000 were women. And then when I went to Stanford in 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.160 the late nineties, it was still about a quarter. And 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.120 then when I became a parent seven half years ago, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.800 it was like, right, So we've seen this deterioration. And 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:45.880 the deterioration also obscures the raw number challenge, because clearly 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.640 the denominator has only grown from the mid nineteen eighties 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.320 of computer science programs, and yet the percentage of women. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:54.880 Let me ask you, why didn't you go into computers. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.400 If you were a math person, what happened? Yeah, I 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.280 think about that, characause I loved math. I was good 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.160 at math. I had parents who were excited that I 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.400 loved math, was good at man. My calculus teacher in 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.600 high school, Mrs Goldman, was a woman and was like 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.520 tough as nails but fair and made learning calculus fun. 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:18.040 I always have been interested in math as a utility 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:22.120 for public health and medicine and biology, and so it 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.600 never even occurred to me like I didn't make an 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.480 affirmative choice to not go into computer science, although I 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.360 did make an affirmative choice to go to Stanford. I 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.200 did have this sense in the late night the font 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.800 of many of these places, many of these companies were 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.640 all started so curious. I was like, what is happening 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.920 in this place called Palo Alto, which from like d 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.280 C felt like this like very far away land. But 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.560 you didn't do it. We were in exactly the right 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.560 place at the right time to move into that end, 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:49.320 I know, And yet it didn't appeal to me. And 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.280 then I wonder was I hard coded in ways that 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.720 no pun intended like to still think that wasn't for me. 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.960 I don't know. Something happens to girls. And this has 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.440 been studied a lot at a certain age and it's 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.520 probably just past ten years old. It's it's largely like 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.600 early early middle school, yes, where it's they suddenly move 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.720 away from it, and it's either because they don't feel 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.400 but they belong, or that they're pushed that way, or 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.840 that there's a stigma for being a geek that is 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.480 way too much harder for women than men. But it's 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.200 certainly apparent that something occurs. Now. Lots of women get through, 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.199 for sure, and a lot of a lot of those 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.480 women end up going into medicine or the sciences. You'll 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.800 you don't find that as much in the sciences in 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.480 all the difference. I mean, I teach at the School 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.800 of Public Health that Columbian have many, you know, women 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:39.640 colleagues who are epidemiologists, hardcore research scientists, economists, lots of everything, 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.760 and so it's a really interesting thing. Is it then 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.880 it's is it the atmosphere? Is it the you sort of? 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.040 It's everything I think, And you know, Maria Clawe, who 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.080 runs Harvey Mud, has a lot of interesting observations of 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:52.720 why that is. And one of the things she told 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.679 me once was that there's always one man who makes 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.280 it impossible for a lot of people, one particular man 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.679 in a computer us. It just really denigrates and insults 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.880 and it just creates a really bad atmosphere. And it 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.120 often not just women. It leaves out different people so 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.520 that it tends to favor a certain kind of man. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.199 I wrote a piece once called the men and No 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.679 Women of Facebook, and all I did was published their 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.199 pictures and say, hey, this guy does this, and they 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:22.640 got mad at me. I was like, I'm just putting 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.320 that's your pictures of those people. And I did the 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.479 same thing years later, which I found even more disturbing, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.760 which was the men and no Women of Internet company 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.040 boards right Web two point o company boards. Now, in 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.120 that case there's plenty of women qualified to go on boards, 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.000 but still Twitter was a particular example of that, which 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.800 was they had ten men of the same type. It was, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.360 it was the same type of person. And when I 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.200 wrote this piece about them, I wrote, I think the 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.040 single best lead I've ever written, and I should have 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.560 retired right after which I said, on the board of Twitter, 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.480 which has three peters in a dick, there are no 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.760 women and half the usages by women and third of 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:02.800 the usage by people of color. This kind of thing, 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.000 and the CEO Di Costlo is very funny called man, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.080 He's like, that's a really funny lead. I'm like, I know, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.920 I made a penis joke. But he's like, that's unfair, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.040 because you know, we have standards. Started with that we 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.679 have standards thing, And I'm like, you guys right now 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.400 are in a terrible position. So how is it that 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.240 you found ten men of the same type. It's mathematically 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.680 impossible and I'm not even good at math to understand 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.720 why how that happens, and all of them can't be qualified, 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.640 and that you can't find qualified people. And so what 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.520 I began to understand when I started to talk to 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.560 a lot of tech people, they always use the word standards. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.960 They never apply it to people like themselves. They only 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.280 apply it to women and people of color. The default 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.320 is that people like themselves have already met the standards, 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.920 whatever those standards are, whatever they are, And there are 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.240 certain standards, absolutely, but there are interesting new ideas around 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.680 blind hiring and all kinds of things, and it will 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.600 be interesting to see what happens after the pandemic. Because 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.280 people have been working at home, so it creates a 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.200 very different environment, and tech particularly has been pushing the 0:14:58.240 --> 0:14:59.760 idea that you don't need to go in the office. 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.480 I think that will be interesting to see what happens 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.640 when that takes hold over a long period of time. 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.920 And how do you think work from home in the 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.680 tech industry has affected women or what have you observed? 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.200 I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, they can't 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.560 create these little bro fests. And I hate to use 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.760 that term, I try not to, but it really is 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.280 that if there's just no other way around it, you 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.880 create centers of comfort. Right, there's centers of comfort with 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.320 people you're comfortable with whether they're going to go on 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.400 ski trips or whatever they all do. But there's a 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.680 culture around it where people either belong or don't belong. 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.640 And so if you don't have those things, how do 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.200 you create linkage? Is I don't know. You really can't 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.240 grow it up on zoom. It can't be. It can't. 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.560 I don't think you can, or maybe they will, but 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.760 it's harder. I think it'll be an interesting because it 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.400 will last in tech, It will certainly last. The people 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.920 will be remote, they'll be living elsewhere, they'll be creating 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.440 things in other communities and tech will lead the way 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.320 on that for sure. It's it's interesting, like reflecting on 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.960 the challenge of creating those sort of bro hubs on Zoom, 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.040 I think it would expose how purposeful those kind of 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.240 bro hubs often are. You can't pretend that it's just 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.880 like incidental that you all happened to converge around the 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:14.800 ping pong table or you all happen to have a 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.840 beer after work together. Yes, yeah, it'll be interesting to 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.080 see what happens, especially with remote work where people you know, 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:23.240 a lot of Silom Valley people are moving out of 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.560 Silm Valley right There really was a very tight culture there, 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:28.920 and if it's not there from a social point of 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.200 view and a business point of view, you wonder how 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.360 things develop or how they fund things. That's where it 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.520 all starts. As far as I'm concerned, is that the 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.160 number of people that get funded women it's just dropped 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:44.320 again quite considerably. And there's money everywhere. There's money everywhere. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:17:01.480 We're taking a quick break. Stay with us, since we've 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.040 talked so much about the dearth of women in tech. 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.040 And while you very much are a journalist, you are 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.200 one of the most recognizable women in the tech conversation. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.440 Do you have young or maybe even not so young 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.280 women who reach out to you for advice all the time. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.959 What questions do you get? One of the things they 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.399 seem to be asking is will I suffer if I 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.800 take a leap? I think a lot of especially a 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.320 lot of women, tend to be nervous about changing because 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.560 they have a certain achievement somewhere and they don't want 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.919 to jump. The other thing they tend to do is 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.520 take what's offered them rather than what they want to do. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.280 Men are very much more directed. I want to do this, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.840 and I'm going to do this. I often say where 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.520 would your ideal place to work? How would your workplace 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:47.200 look like? What do you want to spend your days, 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.440 your limited days on this planet doing? I always use 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.479 that word so they get a sense of, you know, 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.879 time as a chicken, and so I do find women 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.960 are I wouldn't say more risk averse, but there's something 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.719 that they don't think they can I don't whether it's 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.080 a sense of responsibility. Obviously. Family questions come up a 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.000 lot still with women. I mean the idea that we 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:11.080 don't have universal childcare or universal treakare everything are agnomous. 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.600 State is not having universal paid leave or universal paid 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.200 early childhood education, and it's crazy. It's so bad for 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.360 the economy, like all that stuff, And so I think 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.200 women are still carry the burden of that more than men, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.000 very clearly, And that's no question. I think it's it's 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.440 going to be interesting to see. I think the pandemics 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.000 and the yield all kinds of interesting trends around the workplace, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.800 how people operate with each other at home and where 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.280 you work from and how the hours you work. And 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.639 I think some of it does favor more involvement by women. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.840 More flexibility creates more ability to achieve. I think in 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:47.920 a lot of ways. Where do you think though will 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.119 be in a decade or whatever the way quantum of 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.840 time is in technology, I guess broadly, but also for women, 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.760 do you think there will be more women in leadership position? 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.840 Whether from a management perspective or a board perspective. And 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.159 if the answer is not, how do we try to 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:10.920 change that prognostication? Well, what's interesting is what's the technology 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.359 going to be? Like what's happened is not what's going 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.040 to happen. There's all this movement around cryptocurrency. Is quite 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.280 a lot of women involved in cryptocurrency, which is more men, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.679 but a lot more women than you usually see some 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:23.440 of them. So a lot more women than say like 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.439 web two point now, yes, a dent there, but not 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.919 a lot, but more for sure. There's a lot of 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.399 women in robotics, which I think is a big area, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.120 a lot more women like significantly not an AI though 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.679 for AI as man man man man man, which is 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.760 which is critically important. There's a lot more women involved in, 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.600 you know, all the mechanical engineering stuff, which I think 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.280 will be interesting. Food is another area of food innovation. 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.240 You might see climate change. There's all kinds of really 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.720 interesting climate change companies, and I do run into more 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.280 women in those. I call it chimate change tech. But 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.520 there's whether it's carbon capture, food or water one of 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.800 the two people that did the m RNA vaccine for 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.040 fives or a lot of women. And of course that's 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:06.840 where a lot of stuff is going to focus in 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.320 on in the future, is health and stuff like that. 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.240 So yeah, I would hope that there's lots more opportunities 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.560 as it spreads out. That said, cars mostly men like 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.399 autonomous cars, and space. It's a guy thing, as you 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.080